Sunday, August 5, 2007
By EVELYN SHIH
STAFF WRITER
As an opening clause to a sentence, the word "afterwards" implies something has finished. We have only to read the line to see what follows.Yet coming at the end of a phrase, the word opens the door to judgment. How do we live with the consequences of our actions -- and how will we be interpreted by others? This never-ending revision process, the great big Afterwards, is the central theme of Rachel Seiffert's new novel.
Two British soldiers, one who fought the IRA in the '90s and one a pilot for colonial forces in Kenya during the '50s, grapple with their past participation in now unpopular military actions. The former, Joseph, is the leading man of the romance that drives the narrative arc. David, the latter, is the recently widowed grandfather of the leading lady.
Both find their destinies intertwined with their nation's history of mistakes. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, of course: Everyone agrees in modern-day London that the British should not have colonized and forcibly put down the Mau Mau in Kenya. The violence in Ireland was likewise prolonged and exacerbated by the presence of British soldiers.
Logically, no one can blame the individual soldiers for what occurred in wartime; but for Joseph and David, it is easier to sequester their past selves in silence than to discuss openly what atrocities they may have committed. The self-condemnation that they hide from everyone, including themselves, becomes poisonous -- even explosive -- as the story progresses.
Seiffert structures the plot on a very believable, very charming love story between Joseph and Alice, two lost souls who found each other at a time when neither was looking for a relationship. David enters into a strange triangulation with the young couple when he begins telling stories of his life in Kenya to Joseph instead of Alice. Although his granddaughter is eager to hear him speak of his relationship with his late wife, David finds it easier to relate to her new boyfriend.
Joseph tolerates these cathartic sessions with David, suppressing flashbacks to his own deployment, until one day he simply can't any longer. His self-destructive impulses come to the fore, and everything -- his relationships, his job, his sanity -- is suddenly in jeopardy.
Alice, for her part, knows Joseph and David only in their current state. She belongs to their Afterwards and can only dance along the edges of their turmoil. Seiffert puts her moral questions at the center of the novel as well: Does she need to know everything about those she loves? Where does a need for honesty end, and morbid curiosity begin?
Seiffert's sentences are simple but well-placed, painting a prosaic picture of life going on, day by day, in a subdued tone. She invites the reader to take a ride on the calm lake of these regular people's lives, luring us to the middle of the water just before the brewing trouble suddenly breaks surface.
And she reminds of something that we, as a nation at war, should always remember: that soldiers, too, are human. The war may come and go; but for them, there will be Afterwards.
E-mail: shih@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2007 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
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